Skating Matters in All-Star Game

When Chicago’s Tony Amonte set up near the net in front of Washington goalie Olaf Kolzig to begin a power play in Toronto a year ago, he did so blithely, with no fear, laughing all the way.

He knew it was purest accident, because the NHL All-Star game is like a tag-team tea party, and a penalty is more punishment for a social faux pas than acknowledgment of any real transgression.

While ordinarily the area near the net is a mosh pit, Amonte knew he would have plenty of space to work and that nobody would be hammering him with a stick once the puck was dropped.

Kolzig knew he was at Amonte’s mercy, and that only a failure to find the Blackhawk right wing open on the goal’s doorstep could prevent a score.

It did.

Pavel Bure wasn’t denied though. He scored three times, and seemingly so did anybody else who had a puck on his stick in the All-Star game last season.

Same with Wayne Gretzky at Tampa, Fla., the season before that.

That’s the idea.

For all of the strange goals by Brett Hull, hospital-inducing antics of Derian Hatcher and overtime-followed-by-overtime staples of recent Stanley Cup finals, All-Star game memories are of individual achievement, which is as it should be. They are of San Jose’s Owen Nolan calling his shot, pointing at the top right corner of the net behind goalie Dominik Hasek, then delivering the puck there to score.

The only person watching that day in 1997 who missed the play was Hasek.

“I have seen it many times on TV, and I remember this goal,” he said.

“The reporters, they were asking me what I thought about him showing me the top corner, and I didn’t know what they were talking about because when you are on the ice you don’t really look at his hands. You look at the puck.”

Now you see it, now it’s in the net behind you.

Hasek, the leading vote-getter for the fourth consecutive year, starts again for the World All-Stars in Sunday’s game at Denver and has a firm grasp on reality.

“For the goalies, it is not so easy because you know there will be lots of two-on-ones, three-on-ones, but it’s a great celebration of hockey,” he said. “I am glad to be there again and really appreciate to be a starting goalie.

“On the other hand, I play only one period and I can take a shower and it is over for me. It is a different game. . . . It’s fun, you know, on one side; on the other side, you want to play well and you want to win, even if it is an exhibition game.”

It’s also a break from the pressure cooker of the regular season.

It’s a fraternity meeting of the elite.

In the pantheon of all-star games, it’s more like that of the NBA, which has the best game because it allows its players to do their thing unfettered by coaching.

“It’s a total 180 [degrees] from the way we play at Dallas,” Star center Mike Modano said at Tampa two years ago after a day of skating free of the defense-first regimen of Star Coach Ken Hitchcock.

“It’s kind of fun to go back to play the way we used to play.”

And it’s a bit like baseball’s game, which has the most tradition.

It’s nothing at all like the NFL’s Pro Bowl, an exhibition between luaus in Hawaii in which the performers could play wearing leis and the flowers would emerge without losing a petal.

On Sunday at Denver, check your checks at the door, please. There is more contact in Olympic figure skating than at the NHL All-Star game, but that’s OK because this is for the best hockey players in the world to show why they are the best in the world, and enforcers need not apply.

It’s a 60-minute skills contest, something league games no longer are.

And it’s a chance to see what you can see at Staples Center next season when that building houses the All-Star game.

MOVING VANS DUE IN ANAHEIM

Increasingly, it appears that the Mighty Ducks must have a major overhaul if they are going to have a future.

Disenchanted crowds announced as NHL-sized, but closer to attendance at a West Coast Hockey League arena, are paying major league money to watch a bargain-basement performance night after long, long night.

It has been amazing to watch a team that sailed through the best October in its history go 9-24-5-4 since. Injuries have been a problem. But the Ducks have been in business long enough to accumulate depth to deal with that sort of thing.

Mistakes have been made, including the belief that off-season acquisition German Titov was going to make a difference. Never an impact player, he has landed in Orange County with less than a whisper, producing six goals, eight assists and a minus-10 rating on the plus/minus scale.

There is no easy solution. The medicine needed is going to be castor-oil harsh.

It involves sending a building block somewhere to get a few boards to hold up the roof.

Teemu Selanne has value. Forget a star for a star. Word is that he can command three or four players who can help the Ducks back to respectability soon. If St. Louis is offering Jochen Hecht, Daniel Corso and a couple of other guys, as has been reported elsewhere, pull the trigger.

Now.

The money is right. Selanne, one of sport’s good guys who is not asking out of a miserable situation with the Ducks, deserves to play on a winner. And the Ducks can talk about a future while letting go of a brutal past.

EAGLE’S FEATHERS ARE RUFFLED

You have to wonder if Hitchcock is getting a bit tired of the act of the Erratic Eagle, goalie Ed Belfour.

And whether the Eagle is ready to fly somewhere else after the season, presuming the Stars don’t pick up a hefty option on his contract.

Belfour left the team in Boston, missing two games after a, well, communication problem concerning his practicing on the day of a game in which Marty Turco was scheduled to be in goal.

Belfour came back but has struggled since. Wednesday, Hitchcock said that Belfour had asked for time off to rest.

Two days later, Belfour said his absence in Wednesday’s game against New Jersey was because of coach’s orders.

Belfour was back Friday and played well, but mishandled a long shot that turned into a bad, game-winning goal for San Jose.

He is 5-7 since the Boston blowup, and Turco--who is 10 years younger and has a 9-4 record with a 2.12 goals-against average--is being groomed to replace him.

For now, though, Dallas puts up with Belfour’s practicing when he wants to, and with his temperament. But for how long?

SLAP SHOTS

Calgary is Headache Central this season. Ten Flames have suffered concussions.

Ottawa is the best of the lower-budget NHL teams, and team President Roy Mlakar put things in perspective when he said: “Every time the Canadian dollar drops [in relation to that of the U.S.] a penny, it costs us $280,000 in [annual] payroll.”

Word is that the Senators recently borrowed money from the NHL to meet a payday.

Tom McVie, former coach at Washington and elsewhere, and now a Bruin scout, told the Boston Globe he would like to coach but doubts he would get a chance. He also is running out of organizations. “I’ve been fired more than the space shuttle,” McVie said.

Yes, that is Alexandre Daigle playing in a Southern California league Monday nights with his agent, Pat Brisson, and some movie folks.

Daigle, who got $12 million for five years with Ottawa in 1993, then underachieved through seven seasons with several clubs, has worn out his NHL welcome.